Salisbury Cathedral
Stonehenge
Todd and me at Stonehenge
York Minster, seen from the city wall walk
Micklegate Bar, one of the old city gates leading into York
The Shambles, an old street in York's downtown
This past week was fairly quiet. One of the people I work with had his last day with us on Friday, so almost everyone from our department went out for drinks and dancing on Friday night. We stayed overnight in a hotel that's in the same building as our office, which is pretty convenient. :-) We spent the evening at Tiger, Tiger, and found ourselves in the '70s/'80s music area, which suited all of us just fine.
After getting up and vacating the hotel on Saturday, we went to grab some breakfast and then I decided to spend the day doing some tourist things in London. I went first to the Banqueting House, which is the only of the buildings run by Historic Royal Palaces that I hadn't been to yet. It's all that remains of Whitehall Palace, which used to take up pretty much the whole length from Trafalgar Square to Parliament. Anyway, it's really just one room, but it's a lovely room, with a spectacular Rubens ceiling, and there's a very informative audio guide, so I was there for a while.
From there it was on to the Wallace Collection, a very interesting range of art, decorative art, and armour that was collected by one family over a period of time and then donated to the country, and is now displayed in their former home. There was lots to see, and by the time I was finished there, it was time to go home!
Also this week, I got my Russian visa back, and dropped off my application at the Belarus embassy. I should be able to pick that one up this week, and then I'm all set for my trip in terms of travel documents. There's still quite a bit of other planning to do though! I've booked hostels/hotels in 6 cities so far, but it's the week in Sweden for World's that I'm really having trouble coming up with decent priced accommodation for.
We managed to hire someone to replace me at work, which is a huge relief. We'd interviewed so many people! So she starts 6 days before I leave, which hopefully will be enough time to remember everything I should tell her. I will need to work on a little handbook for her over the next few weeks.
And speaking of work, I should start getting ready! Hope you all have a good week!
Sorry for the delay in updating in here! I just haven't had time to work on a new design until this weekend. It's a bit darker than I intended, but it'll do for a few months at least. :-) The picture is from Stonehenge on New Year's Day, which is the day trip that Todd and I ended up doing. We went as part of a London walks explorer day, and took the train to Salisbury, where we got a tour of the Cathedral and a bit of history of the area, and time to grab a quick lunch there. Then it was off to Stonehenge, with some interesting background on the area and Stonehenge itself. It really is a phenomenal engineering achievement when you stop and think about it.
I was back to work on January 2nd, and Todd I went to see the "remixed" version of Rent that's on here, and ran into Gill there! The show was alright, but we were just kind of left wondering why it needed to be remixed. The main song that really didn't work for me was "What You Own", which is probably one of my favourite songs from the show anyway, and why mess with it when it's already great??
On Saturday, Todd's last day here, we went to the Natural History Museum, where they had a skating rink set up outside, and spent half an hour going in circles on the ice. We took a quick look inside the museum afterwards, including the Earthquake Simulator (pretty lame really ;-), and then headed back to Westminster where we'd hoped to see the Banqueting House, but it was closed for a private function. So we just walked down to Parliament and along the Embankment, up to Covent Garden. We had a late lunch/early supper at The Mongolian Barbeque, which I'd been wanting to try. Todd flew home on Sunday after another tearful farewell at the airport, but the next time we see each other will be the end of my trip, and hopefully the last time we're ever apart for quite so long.
Work has been very busy as I'm trying to get everything cleaned up for my leaving, and trying to find someone to replace me! My boss and I have interviewed over 10 people already. We're seeing 4 more on Monday, and then hopefully doing second round interviews towards the end of next week. Most people here need to give a month's notice, so it'll be getting pretty close to my last day in the office, which is Feb. 27.
So to de-stress, I decided to spend last weekend in York, which is a beautiful city a few hours north of London. I took the bus up, as the train was too expensive on such short notice, and got there very late Friday/early Saturday, so had all of Saturday and most of Sunday (I left on the 4:30 bus) to explore. I spent a lot of time at York Minster and the York Castle Museum, as well as visiting Jorvik Viking Centre, doing a bus tour, walking along the city walls, and wandering around the downtown doing some window shopping and seeing a movie (I Am Legend, with Will Smith - interesting).
This weekend I am stuck in London, as my passport is currently at the Russian embassy getting my tourist visa processed. Once this one is finished, I need to get a Belarus one as well. I've started working on my big trip (booked my flight to Warsaw, for a start), but there's still much more planning needed!
Today is also my mom's 50th birthday! And sadly, she's all alone. I TRIED to have flowers and balloons and a teddy bear delivered to her at work on Friday, but stupid FTD sent me an email on Saturday, the day AFTER they were supposed to be there, saying they couldn't find anyone to deliver them. Grrrrrr. Anyway, I didn't actually send her a gift, but I'm going to fly her out to Vancouver (hopefully) to visit Todd and I this summer. If not Vancouver, then wherever we are living! :-)
Alright, it's time to get started on today, so I'll end this for now with some pictures from this month. January will be over before we know it!!
Stonehenge
Todd and me at Stonehenge
York Minster, seen from the city wall walk
Micklegate Bar, one of the old city gates leading into York
The Shambles, an old street in York's downtown